Ways to remove exhaustion

Question

We have a player in the game I am in playing a frenzying barbarian. Whenever they frenzy, it ends with them gaining a level of exhaustion. The penalties from exhaustion stack up quickly.

Quickly looking through the PHB and checking online, it seems the only ways to remove exhaustion is 1 level over a long rest (I think there is also a high level cleric spell if I'm remembering correctly).

I've been doing some reading of the DMG, but haven't gotten terribly far. Are there any better options presented in the DMG or options I have missed that would prevent large accumulations of exhaustion, or heal more at night, etc?

Answer 1

The 5th level spell Greater Restoration is available to Bards, Clerics, and Druids, and removes one level of exhaustion. The DMG includes the Potion of Vitality, a very rare potion that among other benefits removes exhaustion. Outside of that, resting is the only answer.

The DMG presents two rest variants on page 267. Neither of these affect exhaustion directly, but the Epic Heroism variant allows you to take a long rest in a single hour. This would speed up the process of removing exhaustion; note that it has considerably more effect on the game than just that.

There is one other option that might work. You could kill the barbarian and bring him back to life with the Revivify spell. I don't actually know whether dying removes conditions; I think it's up to the DM. Note: I asked a question about this here.

You could houserule that a single long rest removes exhaustion completely. This shouldn't break anything, because the frenzy barbarian is the only character that is affected by exhaustion on a regular basis.

An important caveat that should be made here is that exhaustion is meant to be an impactful condition that requires some investment to remove. Mearls has tweeted specifically about the frenzy barbarian. http://thesageadvice.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/primal-path-rage/ So you may want to think carefully before making it possible for the barbarian to not have to worry about exhaustion.

Answer 2

The bonus provided by Frenzy is quite large, and you don't have to use Frenzy every time you Rage. It seems that the mechanics for Frenzy are designed around letting you use it once per day, but allow you to push beyond it if you really need to. Consider that for other classes who obtain similar features at level 3, the use of such feature tends to be restricted to 1 use per long rest as well.

Looking through the DMG, there is a Potion of Vitality (very rare, but removes exhaustion completely) and not much more I see, but I could be mistaken.